In the winter of 1880, Christine Daae sat in her guardian's backroom, worrying her red scarf with her hands. She was waiting for Madame Giry and her daughter to call on Madame Valerius from the Paris Opera House.
Christine was just eighteen, her birthday having passed in the second week of January. Although a woman by the standards of any day, the fawning treatment given her by her invalid guardian Madame "Mamma" Valerius kept her frozen in a childlike state of naivete—that, and the fact she lived constantly in her close past.
Her father died four years before. She felt the sharp wound as though it were freshly delivered.
Gustav Daae was considered the finest violinist of his day, but was even more infamous for his rustic image and eccentric personality. Shunning the public eye, scowling throughout his recitals at elegant halls, he nonetheless possessed a rich heart and a warm nature. The man who would barely look an influential critic in the eye while shaking his hand would play his instrument for hours for peasant children, joining them in their village dances.
He felt deeply. So did his daughter.
He never fully recovered from his wife's death. To Christine, Liliane Réhal Daae was a sweet but distant memory. Born in the slums of Paris, Liliane traveled across Europe as the star of Carina Valerius's famous touring ballet company. She was a beautiful, dark girl whose large, wondering eyes and gentle gestures carried Gustav's heart away more deftly than she could even dance. They met in Stockholm, and married three months later.
Gustav Daae, independently famous and wealthy through his work rather than through old familial connections (he was born from a line of poor farmers), married the young dancer to no public ado or outcry. Even the fact the girl was Jewish could not make a dent in the violinist's growing public acclaim.
The couple settled in Uppsala and were happy for a long period. Although Madame Valerius was disappointed her star dancer and dear friend retired to commit herself as Daae's wife, she nonetheless took it on herself to see her pet was taken care of. She, too, was native of Sweden, and let her and her wealthy husband's vast estate to the couple.
Professor Valerius, always acquiescent to his wife's wishes, patronized the gruff but kindly Gustav and paid him handsomely to play at village concerts. When Christine was born, the Daaes were ecstatic. "You are a masterful dancer, and I a masterful violinist," Gustav proclaimed to his wife. "Therefore, our daughter shall master singing."
Liliane replied sweetly in the affirmative, allowing him to give Christine lessons—while she taught the little mass of dark brown curls and large doe eyes ballet. These were Christine's strongest memories of her mother.
Liliane died of pneumonia when Christine was four weeks shy of her sixth birthday. Christine could never dance very well after that.
Gustav never spoke of his grief. The mourning transferred instead to his violin-playing, giving his music an added darker texture, filled with beautiful and dreadful things that thrilled each listener.
And so his acclaim grew. He toured the Scandinavian countries. But he never left there, until Christine was ten and Madame Valerius insisted the father and daughter accompany her and her husband to their vacation home in Perros-Guirec for the summer.
All the love and fervor Gustav had split equally between wife and daughter now fell all on Christine. Never were a father and daughter closer. When he saw her brown eyes shine with anticipatory wonder at the idea of the seaside, he could deny her nothing.
"Papa," Christine said to him on the train, her hand slipping into his, "Will the Angel of Music know where we are in case he wants to visit me?" She spoke seriously, as if inquiring after an important person she would like very much to be acquainted with.
With his usual hearty laugh, he pinched her shoulder, making her squeal. "Don't you think the Angel knows his business, girl? He'll find you true enough when you are ready. Until then, go to sleep and don't bother me." He finished this speech by suddenly tickling her stomach until she hiccoughed, ensuring she stay awake a little longer.
Christine took to the seaside as naturally as an Irish selkie, her father claimed. Mamma and Professor Valerius would often wake to find father and daughter missing, and after inquiries to the staff, invariably found they'd retreated alone to the beach, Christine walking dreamily along the shore, singing to her father's playing from where he sat on a far off log.
They often ended their days this way as well. On one fine evening, the sky a blue covered in velvet, Christine walked even more absentmindedly than usual, the red scarf her mother had made her tied loosely around her neck. A group of Parisian tourists arrived that day, and the air was laced with pleasant chatter from cliffs and corners where the visitors congregated with their staff and callers as they wined and dined overlooking the sea.
She passed a group of young men, whose rambunctious wine-soaked singing died out at the ethereal, unearthly notes Christine sang.
All at once her singing stopped as an unexpected gust of wind carried away her most prized possession, making her cry out "My scarf!" with hands outreached. She watched dismayed as it floated into the waves.
"I'll catch it, my lady!" A good-humored, boyish, yet masculine voice cried out. She dodged a tall, slim, flying thing crashing clumsily into the waves, swaying on his feet. Through the dark mist, she could just make out a crown of dark gold hair and a well-muscled yet svelte back.
At last he emerged, waving the damp scarf in the air as revolutionaries would their flag. The cheering from the drunk boys was enthusiastic.
"Here you are, sweet lady!" He announced, stooping down to give it to her, rum on his breath. He was dripping wet.
She stepped back, voice caught, afraid and exhilarated.
The handsomest face in the world smiled down at her.
She could tell he was native to France by his accent. His bone structure could only be described by authors of the time as perfectly Grecian.
She didn't see this face for long. His wet hand came down on her curly head and ruffled it so that some of the curls fell in her eyes. Although the young man was obviously rather inebriated, he spoke eloquently and warmly. "I wouldn't let a little lady who sings so prettily lose such a pretty scarf. What ho, what a voice you possess, mademoiselle! Are you by chance the star at the Paris Opera House?"
"I—I"— Christine replied. She was staring down at her scarf, twisting out the water with her fidgety hands. Her cheeks were as crimson as the scarf.
He suddenly grabbed her gently by the arm, excited as he spotted something in the distance behind her. He said in a rushed whisper, "Don't mean to interrupt, mademoiselle, but do you see that man on the log over there, playing the violin?" His pale blue eyes were alight with eagerness. "That is—I can't believe it!—that is the great Gustav Daae! He's a marvelous violinist, simply the best in the world! I heard him five years ago when I was a child during a brief visit he made to Paris, and he's the tops! He doesn't go out much these days, a bit of a recluse—something I admire, you know, the gumption to say, 'to hell'—er, 'to the devil with you lot! I go my own way.' To see him here, in good old Perros!" He was as excited as a little boy.
"Hzmfthuh", Christine mumbled quickly.
He blinked a few times. "Er, what was that, mademoiselle? I apologize, I think I must still have some sea water in my ear."
"He's my father," she said more clearly.
"I'm sorry, I still didn't get that. It sounded like you said, 'he's my father'."
"I did."
She thrilled at how this handsome face went suddenly slack with disbelief. Then he laughed out loud, which thrilled her even more. It sounded almost like her father's.
"Your father! Your father, you say? Well, no wonder you've got such a pair of top-notch pipes!" He made a steep bow, making Christine giggle. "An honor, Mademoiselle Daae."
She gave no reply at first, simply continuing to giggle, cheeks rosier and rosier. "Do you—do you want to meet him?" She asked shyly.
She was delighted anew by the boyish ecstatic light in his expression. "Me? Meet him? Oh say, I don't want to take advantage of our new acquaintance to"—
"Nonsense!" She surprised herself by saying. She never knew where she found her courage, but she took him by the hand and led him up the slope to where her father sat playing.
Sharing his daughter's dreamy nature, Gustav was so enraptured by his melody he'd neglected to notice the recent drama of his daughter's lost scarf and its subsequent rescue. He frowned warily as his dearest treasure dragged by her hand a handsome youth. Yet he found himself softening right away at the open friendliness the boy's face possessed.
With manly verve, the boy put forward his hand. "Monsieur, I am your most ardent admirer, Raoul de Chagny."
And thus the love of Christine Daae's life, her future husband and father to her children, professed more open admiration to her father than to her in their first meeting.
Gustav raised his bushy eyebrows, accepting the boy's hand. "De Chagny? Of the old family in Paris? Shouldn't you be a viscount, then?"
Christine saw the noble jaw stick out. "I'm a revolutionary," he said adamantly. "I reject all titles."
Christine watched pleased as her father, usually depressed and taciturn in the company of others, laughed with amused approval. "A revolutionary, eh? And at such a young age! How old are you, boy without a title?"
"Fourteen, sir." To the ten-year-old Christine, fourteen was a glamorous, adult age, perfect for a prince one admires from afar.
Gustav pointed authoritatively to a sandy spot by his log with his bow. "Sit, sir. You interest me. How did you meet this young ragamuffin of mine?"
"He rescued my scarf from the sea, Papa," Christine blurted out. She clamped down again as Raoul quickly collapsed at the spot indicated, lying on his side, staring up happily at Gustav.
Her father thanked him for his efforts. "My pleasure," the boy Raoul said honestly. "I've been hobnobbing with that loud crowd of sailors over there. My sisters and my brother disapprove of course, but what do I care? They're with the royalist majority and I'm not. I like good honest working people." He emphasized this by bringing his fist down into the sand. He still swayed from the rum, which endeared him to Gustav even more. "That's why I'm joining the Navy the first chance I get. To incite rebellion and bring France back to glory. Those fellows were just teaching me some sea chanties to get me ready."
"Will you sing us some?" Christine asked quietly.
Gustav approved of the blush that crossed Raoul's face here, denoting he knew what was proper for a young lady to hear. "Er, better not, Miss. I'd much rather hear you sing again."
"Yes, a splendid idea!" Gustav said, bringing his violin to his shoulder. "You sing to my playing, Christine."
"Christine. That's a pretty name," Raoul said in an off-handed pleasant way as he leaned back into his folded hands, staring out to the sea.
Christine's heart grew wings and flew out of her body.
She never sang so beautifully before. She brought tears even to her father's eyes.
From that day forward, Raoul de Chagny was a constant companion of Gustav and Christine Daae's. His older brother, his guardian, allowed him to take violin lessons once he learned it was the great Gustav Daae his little brother was whiling away his time with (given the man's dress and habits, and his brother's unconventionality, Philippe de Chagny first assumed Gustav was a grubby peasant).
Raoul took well to the violin, but in truth he spent most of the time sitting with little Christine in the attic, having picnics with Gustav as the older man regaled them with dark stories of the North, and their favorite, the children's verse about "Little Lotte".
Gustav always let little Christine sing her favorite lines:
"But what she loved best, Lotte said
Is when I'm asleep in my bed
And the Angel of Music sings songs in my head
The Angel of Music sings songs in my head."
"You will be visited by the Angel, my child," Gustav always insisted.
"Hear, hear!" Raoul agreed.
Christine would glow with pleasure.
Raoul felt no embarrassment that he, a young man of good family, spent the majority of his summer at the side of a rustic old man and his little girl. He would eagerly tell Gustav all about his political aspirations, his desire to socialize the national government and to lead another Paris Commune. Raoul would then tug on Christine's curls and challenge her to see which of them could stand on one leg the longest. He always let her win, and she knew it, and loved him all the more ardently for it.
For she was in love with this young man with all the genuine passion a ten-year-old can have for the dashing fourteen-year-old who saved her scarf from the sea. Each night, Gustav was amused to overhear her prayers before she tucked herself in bed, thinking herself unheard:
"…Please bless Papa, Mamma in Heaven, Mamma Valerius here, and Professor Valerius. Bless and keep Raoul de Chagny, and please make him fall in love with me. Thank you. Oh, and please give Mademoiselle Clothilde Reinard a pimple right on her nose." Mademoiselle Clothilde was a sixteen-year-old local belle Christine once heard Raoul describe as pretty as they passed by. Blushing, Christine would quickly retract the statement from her prayer, afraid of her own jealous temper.
Christine herself was not a beauty yet, aside from her lustrous curls and soft brown eyes. Her face was sweet but thin, and her long spindly legs made her taller than average for her age, giving her an overall gawky look. Coltish summed her up. At ten she of course did not possess womanly charm to compensate, but she was genuine, and she charmed nonetheless with her sincerity and her eagerness to please.
Raoul adored her as the little sister he never had, just as he loved Gustav as the playful father figure he did not possess with the kind but cold Philippe. Raoul often liked to tell Christine that he would keep a sharp eye on any future suitor of hers, and give the miscreants what-for if they should dare try to insult her honor.
Christine liked to pretend this was romantic jealousy, not brotherly concern, though she was no fool.
To the dismay of the three involved, the summer eventually came to a close, and Raoul had to leave with his family.
He approached the Daae duo as they sat at their usual log. He somberly shook Gustav's hand. "I can't tell you what your friendship means to me, monsieur."
Tears misted the violinist's eyes. "My boy, I feel like I'm losing a son."
"Oh, don't say that, monsieur! We shall see each other again, I know it!"
"Do you promise?" Christine asked, surprising them. She'd been so silent, staring at the sand at her feet. Now her large fawn-like eyes stared with teary appeal into the sea-blue eyes of the boy before her.
Swept up in emotion, Raoul planted a firm kiss on her curly head. "I promise, my Little Lotte." Scared of any more strong emotions he might display, he walked away, head down, hands stuffed stiffly in his pockets.
Once he was gone from sight, Christine sank to her knees and cried harrowingly into her father's lap.
Her heart had indeed flown away, and would it never come back?
"No," she said at night, staring at her ceiling. "No, he promised he'd come back. He promised."
And indeed he did, though three years would pass.
In the meantime, he kept up a steady correspondence with Gustav, always sending his love to his Little Lotte. Despite his earlier expectations, Gustav was enamored with Perros, and when Professor and Madame Valerius decided to retire to Paris, they left Gustav as permanent caretaker of their beachside estate.
There he worked on various compositions, all half-done and erratic. Christine often asked him if his Angel would ever visit, and he'd swallow his disappointed anger and say, "Not yet, my child. He's waiting until you're old enough to come visit you." And he'd kiss her on the cheek and abandon what he was doing to give her another singing lesson.
Her voice grew more and more beautiful with each passing day. With both her mother dead and now Mamma Valerius gone to Paris, Christine's dancing fell to the wayside, and she threw her heart and soul into her song. Passersby would invariably stop at the window of the Valerius drawing room, enraptured by the angelic, unreal voice of this girl so young as she practiced her scales.
Secretly Gustav worried about his daughter. Since Raoul's departure, she shunned all other company but her father's. It was all well and good to like a handsome older boy, but certainly after some months without his company such feelings should fade with the caprices of youth.
But Christine's did not. She thought and spoke of Raoul often, and disconcerted her father one night when he passed by her bedroom, hearing her whisper "Raoul…Raoul…." somberly into the darkness.
Otherwise she lived solely for her father. Gustav selfishly enjoyed her devotion, and in his weakness he never very strongly encouraged her to form ties with anyone else around Perros. There was no other family for her to maintain friendship with, and aside from the occasional visits from Mamma Valerius when she felt it all right to leave her ailing husband, Christine spent all her time with her father.
Her years in Perros diminished her Swedish accent almost entirely, her mother's French roots beginning to show more prominently. Her dark eyes, curly hair, and slim figure fit the typical French image more than the fairer voluptuous one ignorant members of society associated with Sweden. "You are a regular Parisian," her father would tease her.
Christine blushed at these words, regarding Paris as a far-off, sophisticated mecca. Did Raoul like Parisian-looking girls…?
When she was thirteen he returned. It was a brief sentimental stop before he left for the Navy.
When she heard him arrive, Christine froze in the kitchen where she was preparing the tea, swaying as she heard his new deep, soothing baritone ring out his greeting to Gustav in the drawing-room. Right before she entered with the tray, she smoothed her muted pink skirt and checked her reflection in the mirror, her heart pounding so loudly it hummed in her temples.
Although her looks had certainly improved over the years—her face was a little fuller now, her dress more flattering to her lissome figure—she still was a bit too ungainly, her manners still guileless to the point of gawkish.
Still, it would have taken a far colder heart than Raoul de Chagny's not to be touched by the dewey-eyed look of sincerity and tenderness on the almost pretty face that awkwardly entered the room.
"Little Lotte," he said fondly, walking up and kissing her hand once she placed her tray carefully on the table. He graced her with a melancholy half-smile, a new expression.
He was seventeen now and looked like a man. He'd almost reached his full height, standing two inches taller than her father. His bone structure increased his resemblance to Adonis. He was astoundingly, devastatingly handsome.
"You've changed, Raoul," she whispered. She did not mean his mature looks alone.
There was a distant sadness to him now, a weary gleam in his ocean-blue eyes.
"So you became a viscount after all," Gustav said.
That strange, wry half-smile again. "It was Philippe's final wish. I could not deny him that."
Christine blushed furiously, ashamed of herself for forgetting to express her sympathies right away. "Oh yes, we'd heard about that! Oh Raoul, I'm so, so sorry."
The deep worry in her eyes—they practically said, "let me comfort you, please"—appealed to Raoul more than any words could. Precious little Christine, he thought, taking her hand and pressing it. She was still in his mind a cherished little sister.
"Pneumonia," Gustav said bitterly. "That's just what took Christine's mother from us."
This proved how closely Gustav felt to Raoul. Christine seldom heard her father refer to Liliane.
"I thank you both for your sympathies. It came on very suddenly. My brother was an old-fashioned soul, and we didn't agree on everything, but I loved and admired him just the same." He raised his eyebrows just then, sighing. "You may think I've abandoned my liberal leanings, but I promise you I haven't. But I've had to rally round and carry on the family tradition of title and land-holding now that I'm the only male heir alive." He shook his head suddenly, agitated. "But I'll be da—hanged if I have to stick around to do it." The old righteous fire was back, only with a harder edge. "Thus I'm joining the Navy anyhow."
"Do be careful, Raoul," Christine said, hand on his arm. "I'm too stupid to fully understand what's going on in the world right now and I know everything's settled down now that the Prussians are out of France, but…but…." Her eyes were so beseeching.
Raoul was both touched and heartbroken to suddenly see the truth of Christine's feelings so nakedly. With infinite tenderness he cupped her cheek. "Dear Christine," he said. "I'll return in one piece, you'll see." He winked, the ghost of his former carefree self.
An hour passed, a blissful, confusing hour for Christine's poor fluttering heart, and then Raoul stood to take his leave. He embraced Gustav tightly—Gustav had intimated before Christine came in that not all was well with him health-wise, and Raoul with a strange foreboding took the Swede in his arms as if for the last time—and said fond words of farewell.
Then once more with that mystifying, fascinating, heart-wrenching half-smile he kissed Christine on her cheek. "Mademoiselle, I shall never forget you," he gave her.
He left.
She couldn't say anything to her father. She ran to her room, almost tripping over her skirts as the tears blocked her vision.
The strange alteration in him, the sadness, did not in any way diminish his appeal to her. If anything, her adoration intensified. "We can make him happy, Father and I," she told herself that night as she lay awake, listening to the sea outside her window. "He'll come back to us and it will be as before. And I shall be so beautiful and kind he'll forget everything that ever made him sad, and father will kid the darkness out of him."
But a year later her father was gone.
The doctor said it was cancer of the lung. But Christine didn't remember this, or any of the details from his short illness. It was all a nightmarish blur, and were it not for the recently widowed Madame Valerius taking over, watching over father and daughter both, Christine doubted she would have survived the shock.
All she remembered was her last talk with him at his bedside.
He drew her near. All he said to her was what he'd said a million times before: "When I'm in Heaven, child, I will send the Angel of Music to you." This time there was such a reverent, mystical light in his eyes that she shivered. She knew it to be true, because in his delirium, it truly was. Then his grip on her hand loosened and he was gone.
Mamma Valerius came running at Christine's unearthly keening wail. The young girl looked like a madwoman from a Greek tragedy. Although Mamma Valerius had felt misery at her husband's passing, such deep, all-abiding sorrow was an unknown entity to her.
Christine didn't speak for a week after. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, like a corpse herself. Madame Valerius feared for her sanity. The doctor, a wise man, said she was in shock and would come to by herself.
She did. She woke up calling for her father.
Madame Valerius took her to Paris.
Almost four years followed of recovery. Four years of Christine going through the motions for her foster mother, of lifeless singing and dancing lessons. Her voice lost its luster, its strength, its ethereal power. It was a limp dead thing, pitch perfect and pure of tone and empty, staggeringly empty. Weak and tremulous. She danced with the precision and grace of a lumbering goat. She was miserable when she was paying attention to what went on around her.
So she lived inside her mind instead.
In the vast seaside of her mind, there was everything—angels and fathers and dashing young men with the sun in their hair and the sea in their eyes. Raoul would rush in and save her from the brigands holding her hostage, whisk her away back to her worried father. "The Angel of Music led me here," Raoul would murmur in her curls, his hands firm around her waist. "He has shown me what a fool I've been. I've loved you all the time."
What came next in her fantasies made her blush with shame in the morning, yet their potent power turned her spiritually from a girl into a young woman—and into a beauty. She still retained the childlike mannerisms and attitudes, but there was a suppressed longing that was not a girl's.
She'd only half-given up believing in the Angel. Her father promised her...
But why should the Angel visit her when her voice was now so weak? Who was there to sing for now, with Father dead and Raoul...Raoul who knows where on the vast sea, with his shipmates? Internally she wanted to burst forth with melody, but the reality was too much for her, and nothing worthy of art came out.
Still.
Her father promised her...
Christine started from her reverie in Madame Valerius's home, hearing the visitors ascend the stairs. Madame Valerius was slowly ailing herself and seldom left her bed these days. She received her visitors there, a door linking her room to the backroom Christine now nervously occupied.
Christine heard voices and despite her ingrained sense of propriety, she flew silently to the door, pressing her ear there, listening. She still gripped her scarf.
Madame Valerius's wry laugh. "Antoinette, Antoinette! Lord, you haven't changed a bit: austere and majestic as always. Oh pooh, Madame, don't put on such airs. Kiss my cheek, my dear."
Madame Giry apparently acquiesced, then cleared her throat. "I regret your illness, Madame Carina. I regret too not being able to see you the past five years, despite our close approximation. But you are familiar with the rigors of theatrical life." Giry's voice was distant and imperious, and Christine had never heard such a crisp Parisian accent. She shifted self-consciously. With just her voice alone this woman made Christine feel like a common country-girl.
"Nonsense, nonsense," Madame Valerius responded. "The fault is mine. I've been preoccupied, as you of course know, with my dear adopted daughter. She's had a hard time of it, poor thing...ah, but speaking of daughters! Hello, mademoiselle," she said, changing the tone of her voice to the sweet notes Christine recognized she used with her.
A rustle of skirts. Madame Giry's daughter must be curtseying. "Hello, Madame. It is such a pleasure to see you again." Christine tilted her head. The voice was small, breathy, yet pert and full of warmth.
"Why, you're practically all grown up, Meg! Let's see, you were how old when I last saw you...?"
"I think I was about ten, Madame."
"Yes, ten, of course. And you are now...?"
"I turned fifteen in November, Madame."
"Well, I must have told you back when you were ten that you are not to call me 'Madame'. Leave that title to your authoritative mother. I prefer 'Mamma Valerius' and nothing else. Come here and kiss me, too."
The girl Meg moved with quick, graceful steps, her feet barely making any sound. She evidently echoed her mother and kissed Madame Valerius's wrinkled cheek.
"I hear you are quickly rising in the ranks of the corps de ballet, mademoiselle."
"Yes, that is true." There was neither false modesty nor vanity in her cheerful frank response. It was a fact: nothing more, nothing less.
Madame Valerius laughed again. "That takes you back, doesn't it, Antoinette?" Madame Giry must have nodded, for Valerius continued addressing Meg: "You have heard, mademoiselle, how your dear mother came to my rescue five years after my star pupil Mademoiselle Réhal eloped and left my company floundering without a proper leading lady? Your mother appeared out of nowhere to help me teach, and before I knew it, she stepped in as the star."
"Mother doesn't talk about it much, but I remember it a little myself. One of my first memories is watching her dance in...it was La Sylphide, wasn't it, Mother?"
"There were many, my child." Christine thrilled at the promise of tragic secrets and heartbreak that hid in the valleys of Madame Giry's deep voice.
"You have a very good memory then, mademoiselle," Valerius said. "You couldn't have been but three when your mother decided to retire here, leaving my poor troupe to wander unmoored once again. Five years later I followed her example and sold my company to that Russian outfit..."
Her voice trailed off, as it often did now, lost in her memories.
Madame Giry tactfully steered her back to the matter at hand. "Which brings us, Madame Carina, to Miss Christine Daae."
Christine's heart pounded behind the door, and she chided herself for her fear that the three next door could hear it.
"Oh yes," Meg eagerly interjected, concern in her small voice. "Please, tell us about her."
Christine felt shame burn her cheeks as she heard her adopted mother sigh hopelessly. A pause followed. Then she said, "Christine is a good child. A good, good child."
Another pause. Then rather unsentimentally, Giry prompted, "And?"
Madame Valerius was frank. "And she's totally lost all inspiration. You should have heard her voice when she was younger! Ah! She made the angels weep! But with her father's death..." she presumably shook her head.
Christine blinked back embarrassed tears.
Then came the most soothing, sympathetic tone she'd ever heard in a voice: "How awful for her!" It was the girl Meg.
"Yes, it has been a terrible strain on her," Valerius agreed. "She is a sensitive thing. Her father meant the world to her, and she has no other family. And I—well, we're very fond of one another, but I'm hardly the ideal company for a young woman at the age for society in Paris. What I would like, Antoinette, is to see her placed in the chorus." Despite her illness, Carina Valerius kept an ear open and knew that it was not Monsieur Lefevre or Monsieur Reyer to consult about a place in the opera—it was the forbidding and capable mistress of ballet.
Yet Giry's influence only went so far. "The Paris Opera chorus is perhaps the most competitive in the world," she replied. "It is notoriously difficult to enter. She can audition, of course, but not even the legacy her father leaves behind, or your patronage, is enough to secure her a spot there."
Christine didn't know if she was disappointed or relieved. The world outside Valerius's walls was a frightening proposition. She'd entered Paris a dazed orphan, neglecting to take in the city she'd fantasized about in her childhood. She wasn't sure she was ready to study it now.
Then Meg Giry spoke again, in a way that reminded Christine of a chirping, well-meaning little bird. "Can she dance like her mother did? If so, maybe we could get her a spot in the corps de ballet until her voice improves."
Madame Valerius sighed once more. "She can dance. But dance well? No." Although this too was not news to Christine, it did nothing to help her blushing and her stifled tears. Was she of any use to anyone? "She knows the steps and practices daily, but if you ask me if she has any great potential..."
Meg chirped again, eager now. "Listen, Mother! You can easily secure her a spot as understudy in the ballet. That way she can earn her keep but spend most of her energy working on her voice! Then when she's ready, she can try out for the chorus instead."
The other two voices fell silent, considering. Christine fiddled with the fringe on her bodice nervously, right above that pounding heart.
At last Madame Giry spoke. "It is doable. I can use my influence and that of the Daae, Réhal, and Valerius names to secure her a position as understudy."
"Ah!" Valerius cried, relieved. She clapped her hands. "A splendid compromise. I'm sure if coached correctly, Christine can sing as triumphantly as she once did, and dance passably enough. It is settled?"
"It is settled," Madame Giry confirmed.
Christine jumped as Valerius called her name. "Christine! Come here, my child!" Madame Valerius often found her own trumpeting voice a more valuable servant than a maid for fetching persons around the house.
Counting silently to three, Christine straightened like a soldier preparing for battle and with a sick face she entered the bedroom, leaving her scarf behind.
"Christine, dear! This is my old friend Antoinette Giry of the Paris Opera House, and her daughter Meg."
Madame Giry and Meg were as different as night and day. Madame Giry was all sharp angles and dark sad eyes, black hair, black clothes, tall frame. Her expression and bearing were aloof. Christine sensed there was much kindness lurking there, but for now she was too intimidated by the icy layer that covered it.
Meg Giry, on the other hand! Meg Giry was golden and pink, rosy with youthful prettiness. She was quite petite, and didn't look very at home in her cream-colored dress (Christine would soon learn that was because Meg was almost constantly in her tutu, and didn't know how to move naturally in longer skirts). Where her mother's features were harsh, Meg's were soft and lovely. She possessed a great profusion of blonde curls with reddish highlights, and her bee-stung lips spread into a smile as wide and brilliant as sunshine.
She ran forward, taking Christine's hands in hers. "I am so glad to meet you!" Christine wondered if there was a disingenuous bone in this girl's body, since there was no doubt of the sincerity in her statement, the glad gleam that stared out of her merry almond-shaped green-gray eyes.
Meg spread out Christine's arms and looked her over. "Oh, you're so beautiful!" Meg exclaimed. She turned her head suddenly to her mother, sprightly curls jumping. "Mother, isn't she beautiful?"
Madame Giry stoically inclined her head. "You are lovely, my child," she said.
Indeed, Christine had quite gracefully come into her own beauty. This was shown to much advantage in her quiet beige silk gown. Madame Giry was notoriously rigid with her girls in the ballet, and Mamma Valerius had urged Christine to dress modestly—a needless precaution, since Christine did not own a flashy or flirtatious article of clothing in her entire closet.
Meg leaned in, staring her frankly and deeply in the eyes. Christine noticed a few faint freckles on her fair cheeks. "You've had a very hard time, Christine, I know. Is it all right if I call you Christine? I'd very much like to be your friend." She squeezed Christine's hands reassuringly. Her dimples showed as she smiled, and Christine felt tears prick her eyes for very different reasons than before.
"Christine," Madame Valerius said. "How does dancing as understudy in the ballet sound to you? From there you can practice more until you're ready for the chorus."
Christine blanched now that it was her turn to speak. She was far more composed now than in her younger years, but she still struggled with her ancient shyness. She nodded, and licked her lips before answering. "I...I should be honored to join your ballet in any capacity, Madame Giry."
Meg squeezed her hand again as she trembled.
Something in Christine's doe-eyed manner appeared to soften Madame Giry somewhat. A smile almost graced her features. "I will be glad to have you. But remember, being the daughter of the late Gustav Daae and Liliane Réhal is not enough. You must work hard, both at dance and in your singing if you want to make anything of yourself."
Christine nodded again, hypnotized by the authority in her voice. "Yes, Madame. I shall."
"We have all sorts of wonderful singing teachers at the opera house," Meg told her. "You'll have no trouble at all, I'm sure!"
"Of course she'll be staying here with me, not in the dormitories," Mamma Valerius said to Madame Giry.
Giry didn't seem to think much of this arrangement, but only said with a vague haughty air, "As you wish." She stepped toward Christine, and Christine desperately tried to control her trembling. Madame Giry studied her closely. Then she said, "Rehearsal begins at eight o'clock sharp tomorrow morning. I do not tolerate lateness." With that, she inclined her head to Christine and went over to Madame Valerius's bed to kiss her goodbye.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow. No, no, Christine's mind screamed. It's too soon. I...I don't want it. I don't want anything. I want to run to my room and sob and sob in Father's lap and I don't want anymore disappointed glances or anymore whispered remarks or-
The girl called Meg cupped her cheek fondly. "You'll be all right now, Christine," she said in that soft warm voice again. Her face was so pleasant, so kind. It worked on Christine's spirit like a balm. Meg gazed into her eyes as if she could read her thoughts—and passed no judgement, harbored no disappointment. There was only compassion and good humor. And for the first time since Gustav's illness, Madame Valerius saw a true smile cross her ward's face.
A/N: I know I've taken some great liberties here, like making a four-year age difference between Raoul and Christine. That's because to me, in the stage show Raoul seems so...adult, while Christine still has a bit of the child to her. Of course she grows up in the course of the show, but still, I kind of like my headcanon where in the stage show Christine nursed a puppy-dog crush on an oblivious but affectionate older Raoul.
In Leroux Christine's father is never famous, but since Andre knows who he is in the musical, I decided to change that detail as well (along with making Mamma Valerius a former dance mistress-I thought that would be a good way of tying her character to both the Daaes and the Girys, and explain why Christine can dance ballet in the musical).